Page 73 of Corrupt Me

“If I choose. Or maybe it will be another guy tomorrow night. And someone else the next. The point is, what I do is none of your business. Not anymore. Go deal with your shit, Preston.” Turning my back on him, I searched the floor for my clothes. If he wouldn’t leave, I would.

“You stay here with him, and that’s it.”

I didn’t look at him. I didn’t move. Not an inch.

Preston scoffed, a sound made of disbelief and venom. “I never want to see you again. Either of you.”

I listened to Preston storm out of my life for the last time. We’d hurt each other too deeply. Some wounds, no matter how many times you stitched them up, would never heal completely.

My mom’s death was one of those wounds.

And now Preston.

Alone,I tugged on my borrowed pajamas and sank into the middle of the bed, the sheets rumpled and wrinkly. It was hard to believe less than an hour ago I’d been twisted up in this bed with Tristan.

Guilt seeded into my gut. Not wholly due to Preston finding out, but mostly because the sex had been fucking amazing. It was my first time, and I wanted to do it again. Not with anyone. With fucking Tristan.

And that complicated matters.

For one, Tristan had drawn clear lines of expectation. Did that mean what happened was only a singular experience? Could I crawl into his bed again when I needed him? Even the thought of using Tristan for sex and treating it so casually left a sour taste in my mouth. It might be easy for him to go through girls, but despite threatening I’d find someone else to sleep with, it had been as empty of a threat as I’d felt inside. I only wanted, only trusted, Tristan. I doubted anyone else could match the pleasure I had with him.

And then there was Preston.

I sighed, my shoulders slumping as I stared at a loose thread unraveling on the duvet. Regardless of how much Preston hurt and betrayed me, he was still Tristan’s little brother. The last thing I wanted was to cause a rift in their relationship. They’d always been close. Or it seemed that way as I recalled the hurtful things they’d thrown at each other in the heat of their fight. Something was going on between them, and I couldn’t say forsure whether it had anything to do with me, but the grain of doubt in my gut thought I might be part of the problem.

But how?

Tristan appeared in the doorway, and my heart skipped. However small of a reaction, it expanded my guilt, plunging the knife deeper into my chest with a little twist at the end. His eyes found mine, but he said nothing, just looked at me.

He had a cut above his eyebrow but no other noticeable injuries. I suspected the bruises went deeper than surface level. He might not let it show, but I knew him and knew that, like me, he suffered remorse.

Sleep was out of the question. My fingers fumbled together in my lap. “The rain stopped. Can you drive me to Sam’s car?” I asked, seeing no reason to stay, and truthfully, I needed space from him. Everything about Tristan, his scent, his eyes, his scowl, his body, his damn tattoos, his shitty attitude, his arrogance, his darkness, drew me in.

I got the appeal. I understood why girls flocked to him. Why they made absolute fools of themselves for his attention. Why they fought over him. Why they threw themselves at him. Why their hearts broke at his rejection. Why they were willing to settle for one night.

Tristan was a damn drug I’d willingly take every day. Just one dose and I was hooked. He was like my personal brand of heroin, and I couldn’t wait for my next fix.

Except he wasn’t mine.

He didn’t do relationships.

He didn’t commit.

I’d only been thinking about myself, of what I needed. And boy, had Tristan delivered. Perhaps too damn well. Now that I’d been with him, I didn’t want to let go.

He inclined his head over his shoulder to beyond the door. “Your clothes are in the dryer.” He disappeared down the hall.

It took me only a few minutes to find the laundry machines stacked in a closet and change into my clothes. Tristan waited for me by the front door, fully dressed and shoes on. He seemed as eager to get rid of me as I was to leave. Without saying a word, he opened the door, waiting for me to walk through.

Why did it feel like the world had shifted under my feet?

My actions had consequences. Was this one of them?

I walked over the threshold, Tristan right behind me. Neither of us spoke as we stonily went through the building to his car, and the silence stretched like a vast ocean, the turbulent waves separating us further and further away until it felt like I would drown.

Shifting in my seat, I readjusted the belt strapped across my chest and stared at Tristan. “Are you going say nothing to me? Just give me the silent treatment?”

His fingers flexed on the wheel, and his eyes were on the road ahead. “What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? Well, I’m not.”

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